While basketball’s March Madness tightens its grip on the nation, bipartisan legislation has been introduced in the U.S. Congress that would outlaw all betting on amateur athletics.
The Student Athlete Protection Act, if passed, would close a loophole in Nevada state law that allows gambling on all high school, college and Olympic sports.
Legislators led by Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., and Rep. Tom Osborne, R-Nev., introduced the bill yesterday after meeting with more than 20 National Collegiate Athletics Association Division I coaches, administrators and presidents who testified to the necessity of such a law. Osborne formerly coached football at University of Nebraska.
Lou Holtz, longtime Notre Dame football coach and current coach at University of South Carolina, said he favors the law.
“The idea of sports wagering has created problems for our young people,” Holtz said, according to an NCAA press release.
“People have come up to me and said, ‘Coach, you had a great year, you went 10-2.’ I said, ‘I didn’t go 10-2,’ but they said, ‘Yes, you did against the point spread.’ I’ve been cheered after a loss because I beat the spread,” Holtz said.
Kind said the bill would not waltz through Congress.
“We’re fighting the gaming interests in Las Vegas and Atlantic City who obviously want to keep it legal,” Kind said.
Holtz questioned Congress’s willingness to listen to the recommendation of the National Gambling Impact Study Commission.
“If Congress appointed a commission and the commission said get rid of sports wagering, why aren’t we doing it?” Holtz said.
Kind experienced the pressures of gambling on amateur athletics firsthand as a quarterback at Harvard in the ’70s when a point-shaving controversy rushed through the Ivy League. Osborne coached Nebraska to three national champions in 36 years before retiring in 1998.
“It puts additional pressure on the student athlete,” Kind said. “It often leads to students making bad decisions.”
This year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament was preceded by an eruption of scandal. In March, University of Georgia basketball players admitted coaches offered money and arranged for high grades. A week earlier, St. Bonaventure University’s president resigned and the basketball coach was reassigned after the NCAA determined a player had been accepted without a high school diploma.
And last fall University of Michigan excused itself from any championship tournament as reparation for more than $500,000 in gifts players reportedly accepted in the early and late ’90s.
“We’re going to put a lot of pressure on the committee chairs to at least get this to the floor for a debate, which didn’t even happen last time. The point is these are student athletes who are not getting compensated,” Kind said. “We’re trying to preserve the purity of the game. There are times when the outcome of a sporting event is called into doubt, and we’re trying to remove that doubt.”
A 1992 federal law bans gambling on amateur athletics in 46 states, and only Nevada permits gambling on college sports. People from around the world bet billions of dollars on amateur athletics through bookies.
“By continuing to allow Nevada sports books and the gambling industry to usurp billions of dollars from fans, players and families across the U.S., we are supporting an industry that is considered illegal in every state in the nation,” Osborne said.
